Just saw this on demand on Encore and enjoyed it greatly. There is one line in the hallway that Peter O'Toole says to the housekeeper, but I could not make it out. He looks at her in tears and says, "Were you...?". Does anyone know what the word is after you? Many thanks.
shareMrs. Brimley finds Fisk Senior sitting in the hallway.
Mrs. Brimley : Are you all right Mr Fisk?
Fisk Senior : He was shot.
Mrs. Brimley : Yes.
Mr Fisk weeps.
This is what the subtitles say, but on listening several times it does sound like he is saying 'You were shot'. However, this does not make sense as Mrs. Brimley was certainly not shot, in any life.
And Fisk Senior had just found out his dog Wag was shot so I think the subtitle is correct. It is easy to hear 'were shot' instead of 'was shot' if the two 's's are not pronounced clearly. But on repeated listens I do think I can hear the two 's's.
How 'he' can sound like 'you' mystifies me but I can hear either word in what is said. However, the subtitle makes the most sense so I think it is right.
"My will is strong but my won't is weak"
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It's definitely 'He was shot'. Probably just Peter O'Toole's enunciation. Heartbreaking either way
shareI just watched the scene. He says, "You were shot." He realizes that is what happened to Wag.
Then, the housekeeper goes to him and says that that is the truth and something about knowing being better late than never. I got the feeling that they kept the truth from the boy, thinking it was less painful to have the dog missing than to know Wag had been killed by someone.
It's very distinct. He says it in a dazed voice: "You were shot." At last, he knows WHY Wag didn't return to him, and, of course, he's comforted by knowing how his pet felt about him.
I do think it's a parallel to his MIA son. I think I read a comment on this forum in which someone noted the son/dog connection.
*** The trouble with reality is there is no background music. ***
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Yeah, it's a deep one. The dog 'run off' - in other words, he abandoned Fisk Senior. And Fisk Senior 'lost' his son - in other words, Fisk did not quite admit to himself that his son was dead, he simply 'run off' and never came home, just like Wag did. When Fisk made the connection with Wag's death, he made the same connection with his son's death (and we saw him do it - as Spanley recounted his shooting as Wag, in his mind's eye Fisk Senior saw his son shot), hence 'you were shot.' (Yes, I heard that, too). He was talking about both of them, finally accepting that they had been shot, and that he had not been abandoned by either of them.
I have read elsewhere that some have been surprised that such a film could have been made by the big studios. Well, it wasn't - it wasn't made in America at all, it was made in New Zealand, and it never made it to the big screen in the US. Sad thing, that.
Lethe
It sounded to me like he said, "He was shot."
Mrs. Brimley thinks he's speaking of his son. Maybe he was. Maybe he was speaking of Wag. Or both.
Literally just finished watching the film on DVD (its time had come around again) and I was sure he said: "He was shot." It's the only line that makes sense with the housekeeper's immediate assumption that he's referring to the son he lost in the war, rather than the dog he lost as a child.
Of course, once that "blockage" of suppressed emotions is released, his next thoughts are for the later losses: the son, and the wife. The hug with his surviving son, the (now) well-tended garden, and the new dog, suggest that he's achieved closure on all three losses and has finally resumed living - as opposed to merely continuing to exist.
bpollen and ghostgate are correct. Fisk Senior meant that his dog and his son were shot. Maybe the dog was at the top of his mind. If he did say "You were shot" he was speaking to the dog, probably, or possibly the son. Mrs. Brimley thought he was talking about his son. She thought it was about time that he grieved the loss of his son.
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